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Skriven 2005-09-05 08:22:32 av Greg Sears (3:633/104)
     Kommentar till en text av THE CURMUDGEON
Ärende: F unny
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HELP YOUR DOG GET OFF WELFARE -- FIND IT A JOB
By Robert Kirby, The Salt Lake Tribune, March 4, 1999

Although you have to give him credit for trying, prehistoric man was
never able to fully domesticate the eel.  Today, the eel remains
elusive, rubbery and a delicacy in Great Britain.

Fortunately for us, prehistoric man's next choice was the dog.
Actually, it wasn't much of a choice.

The dog starter kit was the wolf, which, being faster, stronger and
toothier than man, kept hanging around in the hopes of eating him.

After a learning curve of about a million years (which is still
sharper than the one the federal government is on), man and dog
eventually learned to get along.

Man cared for the dog; the dog helped man herd other animals,
including a special-ed breed called sheep.

Man (although it was probably really woman telling man to get off his
butt) soon learned that the dog made an excellent form of
transportation.  After a long period of trial and error, during which
dog bit man a lot, the dog sled emerged.

The modern-day version of this dog-man relationship was on display
last weekend at the Atta Boy Heber Valley Classic.

Dog teams from all over the country, although probably not many from
Alabama and Hawaii, gathered to race.

A sled dog is not your normal dog.  In fact, sled dogs are to normal
dogs what crack cocaine is to Flintstone Vitamins.  Which is why, even
when they are sound asleep, sled dogs still give off the frenetic
energy of infomercial announcers.

This is good.

Frankly, it takes a pack of dogs wrapped this tight to be willing to
drag a human-occupied sled over the woods and through the snow without
coming to their senses somewhere along the way and eating said human.
It's truly a marvel of science.

A word of caution here.  True man-dog working harmony such as this
existed only until the Industrial Age and the development of the
postal worker.  Then it was immediately back to wolf and man.

This explains why I found three Internet cable guys on the roof of my
shed yesterday, one of them missing an important part of his
coveralls.

I soon learned that it was because prehistoric man never bothered to
teach dog the concept of "utility easement."

An easement, of course, is the legal right a municipality has to cross
your property with underground power cables, many of which go through
your prize roses and into the back yard where dogs are known to be.

Oblivious to the concept, the basic dog views easement rights the same
way it does the hindquarters of a meter reader.  And everyone knows
that this view is what causes even dogs no larger than Beanie Babies to
think they are wolves again.

I put Zoe and Scout in the shed, where their continued frustration
over the whole easement thing resulted in them chewing a wheel off my
lawn mower and eating half a bag of fertilizer.

Fortunately, the cable guys were nice about it.

Since then I have come to realize that this behavior on the part of my
dogs goes way deeper than a confusion over trespassing.  I think Zoe
and Scout act out like this because they have way too much time on their
hands.  In short, they don't have real jobs.

Seriously, how many dogs do you know that actually work anymore?
Other than the Taco Bell dog, probably none.  Now that woman has mostly
civilized man, there just aren't that many jobs for dogs.

Unless it's lucky enough to land a career pulling a sled or biting
criminals, modern dog mainly just lays around now and collects
welfare.  The tire on the lawn mower was the final straw.  My dogs need
jobs.

First, though, I am going to domesticate them some more with a
rolled-up newspaper.

Cheers,
       __o          o__      o__      o__      o__     There's one
     _ \<,_        _.>/ _   _.>/ _   _.>/ _   _.>/ _   in every
    (@)/ (@)      (@) \(@) (@) \(@) (@) \(@) (@) \(@)  crowd....
...I C E-man.

... Here's some fun:  Walk into an antique shop and say, "What's new?!?"

--- EzyBlueWave V2.01b006 00F90257
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